Inhale Perfume, Exhale Fire
Newsletter 2.2024
While my Dragon’s Blood perfume filters, let me tell you about the most insane story I came across this week.
Smell-as-weapon
Odortec, a corporation in Israel that manufactures the most foul smelling spray titled “Skunk”, deployed to control, disable and humiliate Palestinians reportedly since 2008, cannot be found on the internet. I wanted to locate the company website incase they offered a hint of their components. Online reports of the last twenty years that mentioned and hyper-linked to the company, now open to a junk web portal.
Skunk came to my attention when a story broke that two students at Columbia University, who are former Israeli soldiers, were identified as having sprayed Skunk on other students on campus who were peacefully protesting the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
As a rule, fragrance and flavour corporations provide the GCMS* and Dangerous Goods Report (DGR) of their products to meet health and safety regulations. There is obviously more in this material than the reported “soda bicarb and yeast”. So, I tried in vain to search for the chemistry behind Skunk that reportedly causes nausea, skin rashes, and how it gets WORSE after being washed with water, and can stay on clothes and objects for upto five years! Palestinians have been informing us for decades on how to deal with attacks of tear gas (wash your eyes with milk), and how to deal with Skunk among other terrible forms of dehumanisation. The only effective way to remove this odour, they say, is to take a dip in the salty sea - but even that is not entirely possible when one is landlocked by Israeli forces.
The only reliable reference to Odortec and Skunk’s Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), as far as I know, can be found on the website of WHO PROFITS Research Centre (pictured is a quote from their site).
*Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) combines two analytical tools to identify and measure the concentration of chemicals found in foods, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, fuels, the environment, and more.
A screengrab from an episode of Star Trek: Leonard Nimoy as Spock, the scientist on the Starship Enterprise, always carried his fictional “Tricorder” to instantly identify and analyse the atmospheric composition on alien planets, not unlike the GCMS machine of today.
More commonly in the perfume industry, GCMS has become key to decoding the chemical breakup of commercial perfumes, and this is how fast-fashion catches up to the luxury market to create copycat fragrances. Note for note, they are the same, and this is how they do it. Frankly, corporations within the luxury segment, utilise the cheapest molecules that amount up to 50 cents per formulation per bottle. The rest is just consumer perception shaped via glamorous bottling, packaging and advertising. Buy what you like but know that money spent on a commercial rose/oudh/sandalwood perfume is just money wasted. That cash is better spent on any number of niche artisan perfumers who can craft a perfume far superior to any brand on the market.
Like most (bad) business-models, elaborate budgets are spent on “PR and Events”, not on artists or on the lower class workers who are exploited to the bone. Speaking of skewed business values, I got the shock of my life this week when a journal funded by India’s most wealthiest old-money-families, contacted me to ask for my “support” by asking me to buy advertising or sponsoring their PR/ Events for $5000 or at least $900 approx. If I had that kind of money, I’d be on a holiday. And I have not had a vacation since 2018. But then, I got angry. Upon enquiring around, I learned that the academics who contributed to this magazine’s upcoming issue were paid roughly $95 each. This foundation, like any other entity that generates business, could have easily sourced sponsorship to prioritise better pay for their knowledge producers. Afterall the journal’s brand value and cultural respectability stems from their intellectual labour. As I have expanded (only slightly) since 2018 as a business-artist-critic, the lesson I keep learning over and over is that those making the ask, are the ones who have everything.
Wait — I was discussing the most evil of smells.
Settler Colonial Soap
Smellscapes can be constructed to shape a world of beauty but too often, I have found that in intellectual spaces, this medium is dismissed. How can the impact of invisible smell be displayed, quantified and measured?!
When smell is weaponised, however, no one disputes the power of this medium to transgress boundaries. The real satisfying irony here is that smell does not distinguish between one’s friends and enemies— the soldiers responsible for spraying Skunk got stuck with the stench even if they did not come into contact with it directly. This reminds me of how American soldiers who dispersed Agent Orange over Southeast Asia ended up with all forms of skin cancer. America’s violent chickens always come home to roost.
Skunk was so odious that the same company had to develop and manufacture a special soap to neutralise the potency of this chemical that so traumatised the olfactory glands of these soldiers. This soap is not commercially available within Israel. According to a wikipedia entry on Skunk, rubbing Ketchup on the affected skin can also diminish the smell.
Here’s the other satisfying irony. Samples of this very chemical that smells of garbage were tested by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in India and was found to be “a dud”. According to this Hindustan Times report from 2017, the CRPF intended to use Skunk in Jammu and Kashmir but their drills in Delhi proved ineffective. As one official explained, “We used it on a captive crowd… consisting of CRPF personnel and general public. But they managed to tolerate the smell without much difficulty. Maybe Indians have a higher threshold of tolerating stench,(…)”. Daily catastrophes on this side of the planet are so unhinged that the smell of sewage is the least of our concerns.
Scent-as-Courage
Our “Narcissus” chapter from Bagh-e Hind was reproduced for display at the inaugural edition of Kolkata Queer Arts Month. Curator Kallol Datta, included this chapter as part of his group show, ‘heavy, in your arms’ at Kolkata Centre for Creativity (KCC). On view between 12 December 2023 to 3 January 2024, all six 17th and 18th century paintings were printed to scale and presented with a botanical arrangement by florist Kunal Mandal. Nicolas’ selection of Urdu poetry and our curatorial dialogue from our virtual exhibition was produced in the catalogue as well as the handout.
We also gave a talk on the significance of the narcissus flower in the 18th century. As part of the program, design and architecture historian, Vishal Khandelwal moderated our conversation. As usual, in our own unique way, Nicolas and I offered thoughtful insights that - as we were later informed - the audiences thoroughly enjoyed. I will be insufferable for a moment to say that our combined expertise is so unique that in this broad field of scent, art, history and horticulture, we are the only ones who do what we do.
Ah ha! All done! Dragon’s Blood perfume has filtered out nicely. The main ingredient, dragons blood resin harvested from the Dracaena Cinnabari trees on the Yemeni Socotra island and mimosa absolute (in crystal form) had to be crushed and dissolved in DPG for over two weeks. Heavier resinous materials such as beeswax absolute, elemi, opoponax, styrax, guaiac wood, sandalwood and other botanicals were balanced with the lightness of geranium leaf. It’s ready! In the coming Year of the Dragon, be prepared to breathe fire.